By Orowo Victoria Ojieh
Various reactions have greeted a meeting between the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, and protesting Nigerian university students. It did not end well as the minister walked out on them.
The minister on Monday walked out of the meeting with students, who were protesting over continuous strikes by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
Adamu scheduled an impromptu meeting with the leadership of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), who blocked the entrance of the federal ministry of education at the Central Area in Abuja on Monday.
The students asked the minister to close down his office since he could not resolve the crisis between the Federal Government and ASUU. They also lamented the failure of the government to resolve ASUU strikes after several years.
Speaking during the meeting, NANS national president, Comrade Sunday Asefon, said ASUU strikes were killing education.
He remarked: “This strike has been affecting our lives since 1999 and Nigerian students want to be part of the discussion between the Federal Government and ASUU to find a lasting solution to the matter.
“Nigerian students want to be part of this committee. We want to really know what is going on between ASUU and the federal government. We are tired of the incessant strikes in our education sector.
“Honourable Minister, we saw it on social media, you celebrated your son who graduated from a university outside this country. Our parents do not have that money to send us outside the country. But let us enjoy what we are paying for. We want adequate funding for education in this country.
“If our schools are not open, this will not be the last protest. This is not a threat – when we said we would be coming out, here we are. Today, Niger road is blocked, Benue is blocked, Adamawa is blocked. If care is not taken, this will be worse than #EndSARS.”
Adamu, who was not happy over the statement, told them that the only thing worthy to note in the issues raised was the inclusion of students in the negotiation process.
“Instead of coming here, you should have addressed your lecturers there. Perhaps the only point that you made that is worthy of attention is you said students should be involved in this and I think, probably, this is a very good thing and it is the only thing I am going to take out of all you have said here,” the minister said before stepping out of his conference room.
The meeting, however, ended with no resolution after the minister’s walkout.
However, NANS representatives continued chanting solidarity songs after Adamu walked out on them.
However there were various reactions to the drama in the social media. Here are some excepts from a platform.
Yes, we could blame the minister for getting angry and more else dismissing the students. The minister was my boss at Citizen Magazine in Kaduna. He spoke little and had no patience at all for long talks without substance. Yes, public officials should be tolerant of all sorts. However, pressure groups’ leaders, like that of NANS, tend to speak combatively, perhaps thinking that is the only way their points could be made. But some civility helps in the process of negotiations and bargaining. A man grants you audience you take the opportunity to go personal. I would think that was off-limit. Students’ leaders ought to be discerning and look or act less like area boys. We were once students and union leaders and I know we comported ourselves better.
You can blame the students for whatever reason, but he who feels, knows it.
The minister, as a public servant, should have been a bit tolerant of these students. He should have used the opportunity to enlighten them instead of shutting the door against them.
The government may have good reasons but lost opportunity to win understanding of its situation.
He should have behaved like a father to them at that moment. He could have even used the opportunity to send a message to the nation on the crisis. He lost the opportunity by walking out on them.
Waoh !!! In a sane society this Minister should have been fired .
Greatest Nigerian students. Who born that yeye minister?
Who cursed this country? Why are we doing this to ourselves? For God’s sake, these children have a right to voice out their disgust for incessant strikes that is affecting their own future. I believe it is high time children of those in public offices be barred from schooling outside of this Country. Maybe then, they can understand our frustration as Parents and appreciate what these children are passing thru. What a country we have.
Really? Who civility epp? Is it not civility & docility that gave government & its officials this impetus? Studying a 4 year course for 7 years in this economy and times, anyone would be combative especially when it is something doable that is being denied all the time.
You already said it that the man has short fuse, if he didn’t, his soothing words would have made a whole world of difference. You never can tell that may even have turned the students to government advocates that would make other students & citizens believe they were paid. But as usual he messed everything up.
He still heard the truth told him to his face.
I was a polished leader who argued my points intelligently. University and government officials could not walk out on us because of the strength and logic of our case they were always presented with the dexterity of a diplomat.
The minister is vintage CPC; very arrogant about their emptiness
Why were you expelled from Ife for a session? I am told for radicalism.
I was expelled because we closed down the Nation’s Universities while fighting for the rights of Nigerians to higher education. But I was recalled after I presented my case for a review of what I argued was a harsh punishment. I personally lobbied my way through the review, met with the vice chancellor, the registrar and faced a review panel of top University administrators and professors. I was 21. I doubt if I spoke like this NANS president I would have been recalled.
I’m not saying Adamu Adamu is a dullard o! He is brilliant. Great columnist. But politically arrogant. No leader of the masses should ever respond the way he did. That’s where my ’empty’ and ‘arrogant’ assertions come from.
First class brain does not always translate to first class administrator.
I’ve had a few encounters with him as minister, and I came away with the same impression – himself, FCT minister, former Power Minister, former agric minister.
My yet to be empirically proven theory is: it’s a CPC thing.
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I thought we should be a little bit more outraged by the presentation of the NANS president. I expected him and his colleagues to attend that meeting with concrete proposals that could bring some solution, not shouting meaningless gibberish. The fact is, we have to come to terms that university education is not for everybody. Students need to pay the proper tuition fees while trained administrators have to be appointed as vice chancellors. Students cannot continue with this tuition-free education, or pay peanuts and expect to have something different from the pigsty we call students’ hostels or strike-free academic activities. No where is university education cheap. We need administrators who could bring innovation to revenue generation and management. Trinity College, Cambridge University is landlord to Felixstowe Container Port, O2 Arena and owns 50% stake in Tesco supermarket chains.
Imagine what that means in revenue. NANS should allow government charge appropriate tuition fees; it should be campaigning for student loans to be added to bursary/scholarship. It should be asking the university authorities to have in place employment schemes in which students can work on infrastructure projects on campus and get paid per hour. Abusing ministers and singing solidarity songs bring no solution to our education crisis. Both ASUU and NANS have done the same thing for three decades and the state of the university has progressively grown worse. They should look at themselves and think of new ways of addressing the problem.
My first admission was that he should have tolerated the students but I put it perspective by giving an insight into his character. You call it arrogance but most brilliant people detest mediocrities around them. That I think is the issue here.
It definitely was not arrogance. That NANS president presentation was at best mediocre.
Although I believe that tertiary education should not be out of the reach of the common people, the public universities need to be more innovative even as we make the case for increased government funding for public universities. In our time we made concrete proposals. The Education Tax Fund (ETF), now TETFUND, was the original idea of the Arogundade leadership. We were cout and cultured even though in spite of that there was high handedness on the part of the authorities.
You are even adding pepper to injury. What brilliance? That one? Did the NANs lie? That your brilliant minister celebrated his son’s graduation in a foreign school?
That minister of yours did not pay a dime in school. They were begged to go to School and their payback is to send their children to foreign schools. And when the sad truth stared him in face, he got bellicose. He could not even turn the table around.
Students have never pretended to be diplomats. They are students.
If I were you, I will beg your minister/ former boss to resign!
The encounter between the Minister and the NANS (so-called) leaders reflects what is mostly wrong with us…by way of collapse of values. On the one hand we had a Minister who could have seized a good occasion to articulate the position of his Ministry and government on the perennial crisis with ASUU but obviously got provoked and practically staged a walk out. He should have known that beyond those gathered in his office, there is a larger audience out there interested in the matter of public interest. It is all about understanding that those occupying public offices should always be accountable no matter the provocation.
On the part of the students, this is another evidence that NANS has simply lost it; constantly led by aged fellows with doubtful or dubious studentship credentials. The NANS guy also failed to understand that he was addressing audiences beyond the Minister. But can you give what you don’t have? A prepared short address could have helped and could have been presented to the Minister as the position or demand of Nigerian students on the FG/ASUU face off.
On the other hand, the meeting could have been deliberately made conversational. Something like Hon. Minister we are here because students are suffering, our parents are suffering, Nigerians are tired of government’s failure to honour agreement with ASUU, etc, and we want to know what you are doing about the strike. Such approach could have made escape difficult for the Minister. There was just too much howling.
This is the crux of the matter. All these incessant strikes by ASUU is about funding of public universities. How do we fund these these public universities? Both the Federal and State Governments are establishing more universities when they have not properly funded the existing ones.
In any case, no sector is adequately funded in Nigeria today. We will be deceiving ourselves if we think that government alone can fund the universities. Most of us here know this is not possible.
We can choose to play to the gallery, but that can’t bring solution to the problem.
ASUU, the government at all levels and other critical stakeholders need to meet to discuss various sources of funding for universities.
Strikes didn’t solve the problem in our days , and can’t solve it now. I’ve heard some people argue that we should dedicate 30% of the nation’s budget to the education sector. Others also said we should dedicate 20% to the health sector. Fine. But if we dedicate 50% of our annual budgets to only two sectors, what happens to others like defence?
It is high time we faced reality and device creative ways to resolve the crisis of funding of publicly owned universities.
The first thing is to get the funding right. Then you can work out how the common people can have access. That is where students loan come in for those who cannot afford tuition; scholarship for the brilliant ones and the extremely poor; bursaries from state governments to subsidise; and of course opportunities for students to work and earn some income to pay for decent hostel or for upkeep. Students stay on campus for three, four or more years without applying themselves to work. They apply for job on graduation without work experience. They have no respect for money because they don’t know how difficult it is to earn income. That experience, or lack of it, takes a chunk out of their total outlook to life.
In developed countries, government is only concerned with free access to basic education – literacy and numeracy – up to high school level. University education you have to pay appropriate tuition. You only have other means of accessing fund.
Timely. Been truthful by all concerned will facilitate resolution of the matter.
Government should come out clean instead of renewing an agreement that is not implementable .
As for the students union , it is a reflection of the collapse of hitherto viable platforms for change in our society.
The government now sets up tertiary institutions for political considerations without a thought for funding. It is hoped that discussants will not only caution against setting up more institutions but also consider how the existing ones can be funded outside government. We should not deceive ourselves, no government, state or federal, can solely fund education in this country.
